After countless attempts to bring limbless platforming wonder into the 3D world, creator Michel Ancel returns to knock Rayman down a plane and craft one stunner of a 2D platformer in Rayman Origins.

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The Glade of Dreams is being overrun by "nefurrious" Darktoons, and only one man can save the day: Rayman. Well, Rayman his friend Globox, and the wizardly Teensies, but mostly one man. Rayman Origins singles the iconic heroes return to the glory days of 2D platforming, and he's never looked more glorious. The stunning new look comes courtesy of Michel Ancel's open-source game engine the UBIart Framework, designed to allow smaller teams of artists and developers create high-quality graphics and gameplay in a rapid fashion. The results speak for themselves.

Rayman's return is more than just a pretty makeover, however. The game features more than 60 levels of 2D platforming, a wide variety of play types, and drop-in/drop-out cooperative multiplayer four up to four players, one being Rayman and the other stepping into the shoes of his friends.

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Rayman Origins isn't coming out for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 until the holidays, but we'll have some time with it next week during E3 2011. In the meantime, marvel over the first Rayman game I've been excited about since the dawn of time.